Well Played, Josh Haber · 4:56pm Mar 29th, 2014
Warning: Spoilers from the latest episode, Leap of Faith, abound. Proceed with caution.
I've gone on record saying that Josh Haber has not been my favorite writer this season. The only thing I got out of Castle Mane-ia is that Rarity apparently thinks castles are sentient, and Simple Ways was just too easy to riff on, making me think that the episode was worse than it actually was. Sadly, these problems have not seemed to alleviate themselves in this episode.
Seriously, you'd think that Ponyville would be more wary of the FlimFlam brothers after what happened last time, yet the only ponies raising a skeptical eyebrow are Applejack and Big Macintosh. Also, this might be a nitpick, but we've seen Granny Smith in the water before. That happened this season. Or are we just going to forget about the raft incident in Pinkie Apple Pie? I know that the show's continuity is pretty loose, but it's not that loose. For crying out loud, Mr. Haber, you should pay attention to what your colleagues have already established!
And you know what? What really frustrates me about Josh Haber's writing is that he's perfectly capable of doing that. Case in point, this episode's biggest saving grace with its moral. It's actually a very clever callback to a previous episode. Don't believe me? Well, what if I showed you this?
That's right. Just like Dashie's epiphany in Rainbow Falls, AJ's epiphany in this episode is her overcoming the very thing that Discord used to corrupt her. That, is brilliant. True, it's pretty much what I expected from Applejack's key episode, but after complaining and agreeing with complaints about Josh Haber's somewhat loose grasp on continuity, this was a welcome sight to see. I don't care if it was intentional or not; it salvaged the episode for me.
So while Mr. Haber still needs to work on making scenarios believable in the context of the show's canon, I still have to give him credit for the solid moral and the clever way it was presented. That and Silver Shill was a lot more interesting than Trenderhoof (even if he kinda was a poor man's Coco Pommel).
They never really lied during their previous visit, the sscs6000 did work.
1964883 Lying wasn't really the problem. They tried to force the Apple family out of business using under-hoofed tactics. Even if it wasn't lying, it was still dishonest. And I don't think anypony in Ponyville should've trusted them, least of all Granny Smith.
To be fair, I don't think that any of the ponies at Flim and Flam's performance were in the Super Cider Squeezy episode. And they already had AJ's endorsement when those who were there saw them.
But You're right, I don't know why everypony else was so trusting. Especially since it looked like some of those ponies had various conditions that a placebo should not have been able to do anything to, so they should have noticed that the elixir wasn't working.
Wow. I hadn't noticed that. I think this episode just went up a few points in my book.
But I still think that it's a good episode that could have been great if some things had been a bit different.
My biggest problem with this episode is that it suffers from the same problem that the Breezy episode did: it doesn't follow the pattern of the main character of the episode sacrificing something really important to her for her friends. The first three key episodes all did it, and I thought it was great. Fluttershy's didn't, and while I was disappointed, it didn't really surprise me too much (because by that point I had accepted the somewhat unpopular view that Fluttershy is worst pony and doesn't care about her friends, though I was hoping her episode could break it). But now AJ's episode didn't follow the pattern either.
Then again, maybe it's because it doesn't need to. Before "Rainbow Falls," you could have pretty easily argued that the most important thing in Rainbow's life was joining the Wonderbolts. Same with Rarity and Pinkie and their fashion and parties before their episodes. But I think it's been fairly clear for a while now that AJ's family is probably the most important thing in her life, as evidenced by several different episodes (and between "Super Cider Squeezy 6000" and "Pinkie Apple Pie," the line between family and friends is a bit blurred for her). So maybe that just wasn't a lesson she needed to learn, though I think I still would have liked to see it
Anyway, I'm just rambling on here.
1965953 See, I thought Fluttershy's key episode fit perfectly with her character, as this episode did with Applejack. It's a lesson she needed to learn about her element: It's very possible to be too kind.
But then again, maybe we're seeing different things in these epiphanies. For me, Rarity and Pinkie's epiphanies were about remembering their virtues, while Dashie and AJ's epiphanies involved overcoming Discord's mind games. And as I said, Flutters's epiphany involved finding balance in her element, which is very possible to be what Twilight's key episode is about. But, that's just me.
1965458 Yeah, that did throw me off. Though it had been awhile, and Granny Smith's memory ain't what it used to be.